Monday post

Blog Sunday, March 13, 2005

Today was the day set aside to renew an old friendship between Aleene and her/our Maid of Honor, Carol Yuiska who lives in San Diego. Carol is originally from the Pittsburgh area…Glenshaw in Shaler Township. She graduated from IUP with Aleene and lived in the Annapolis, MD area until the mid 80s when she moved to California. Aleene and Carol have kept in touch over the years, but the last time we saw her was in the spring of 1998 when we were in Palm Springs, CA for a hospital meeting. She, her mother and her sister Barb drove from SD to see us then. Here we were in her area, so we did not want to let the opportunity to go by without renewing the friendship.

Carol is active in her church choir (50+ voices) and sings in two services on Sunday. As a result, we did not plan to get together until about 2:00. She lives about 25 minutes from El Cajon where the RV park we are staying in is located. At 2:00 sharp in she drove. We jumped into her car and off we went to see those parts of SD that we did not see yesterday. This was the expressway tour down I-8 to I-5 and into town past the airport and the cruise ship berths that we saw at a distance yesterday. Then past the Midway, the yacht basin and over the bridge to Coronado Island; the bridge is quite high to accommodate the masts of navy aircraft carriers and cruise liners.

Coronado is a very quaint area…high rent for sure…but it is a mixture of architecture. Some houses look like they are strictly Southwest-Spanish motif and others look like they are right out of Nantucket Island. The main spot, not unlike the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, is the Del Coronado. It is well over 100 years old and quite elegant. It has been in several movies.

On the north end of the island is the Coronado Naval Station which is the Navy’s main ship facility in the San Diego harbor…make that the west coast.

From there we went to Balboa Park which was a 1930s World’s Fair and Exposition which is very rich in culture. It is made up of many stately buildings of Spanish style that are home to a Cinemax, Art Museum, Botanical Garden and international houses of various countries. Today’s theme was Ireland due to St. Patrick’s Day being this week. A major attraction is an outdoor pipe organ which was just wrapping up its recital when we got there.

My brother Joe was stationed in San Diego when he was in the navy and had visited Balboa Park and talked about it frequently over the years. I knew it was a treasure, but never knew it was such a spectacular place. It is well worth a visit to SD just to see it. Aleene and I agreed we would come back to SD and do the whole park thoroughly. It is adjacent to the Zoo which is a world class zoological garden. We went into the zoo but did not get out of the car; just not enough time.
From there we ate supper at an Italian restaurant (which was as good as any in Pittsburgh or New Castle with that distinctive, make that authentic, Italian flavor.) Then Carol took us to her condo (townhouse) for ice cream and coffee. Carol’s mother (93), sister Barb, and her friend from Grand Rapids, Michigan (originally from Etna, PA which is also Shaler Twp.) came over to join us for about 45 minutes of spirited conversation. Picture me with five women all speaking Pittsburgheese at once…just kidding. I loved every minute of it. Funny how geography breaks down all kinds of formality; we had a great time with the Carol’s family. Barb’s friend Mary moved to GR years ago when her husband got a job there and Mary worked at Penney’s at Woodland Mall, but she is a Pittsburgher for sure.
Carol gunned us “home” so we could get Rose some relief and feed her the evening meal. Needless to say at 7:15 and being dark she was glad to see us. She did well both Saturday and Sunday when we left her for five to seven hours each day. The MH is her comfort zone.
By the way, be decided to brave LA during daylight rather that in the dark. So we will leave El Cajon about 9:00 a.m. Monday and hope to be north of LA by 2:00 p.m. and then start looking for a place to stay for the night. Our goal is to be in the vicinity of Newberg by Wednesday late afternoon. It is about 9 hours by car from Sacramento, if I recall Amy and Brendon’s experience.